1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an analog electronic timepiece which displays the time with pointers.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, analog electronic timepieces which display the time by the rotatable pointers pointing at predetermined directions (positions) are known. In such analog electronic timepieces, rotational operation of motors is transmitted to the gear train mechanisms wherein a plurality of gears are arranged and the pointers which rotate in conjunction with the last gears in the gear trains mechanisms move in the normal rotation direction and the reverse rotation direction.
In the meshing of the gears which constitute a gear train mechanism, gaps (play spaces) which are called backlash are provided assuming that the gears can be modified slightly due to various causes such as temperature variation and aging. Therefore, there are cases where rotation cannot be transmitted to the last gear in the gear train mechanism and to the pointer connected to the last gear when the first gear in the gear train mechanism is rotated in a state having gaps in the meshing.
Influence of such backlash is notable when the rotation direction of the pointer is reversed. If the gears in a gear train mechanism are arranged so that they are meshed with no gaps with respect to the rotation of a pointer in one direction, the gaps are at their maximum size with respect to the rotation of the pointer in the opposite direction. Therefore, the pointer does not move with the rotation operation of the motor for the number of steps corresponding to the maximum size of gaps. As a result, the position of the pointer predicted from the number of times the motor is driven and the position of the actual display of the pointer may not match and there may be a time lag until the reverse rotation of the pointer is started. In view of the above, techniques for removing the influence of backlash without fail and operating the motor in advance for the number of steps corresponding to the gaps so that there will be no gap between the gears in the direction of the next rotation are disclose in JP 2008-209259 and JP 2011-191220, for example.
However, in analog electronic timepieces, because it takes time to move a pointer to the moving target position, there are cases where different fast forwarding movement is started while the pointer is moving fast forward. In such cases, the influence of backlash cannot be removed appropriately and the position where the pointer points may be different from the predicted position in the conventional configuration.
The present invention is an analog electronic timepiece which can easily adjust the position of a pointer to a desired display position without fail when fast forwarding operation is completed.